Oral history interview with Ruth Dial Woods, June 12, 1992
Subtitle: interview L-0078, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Coe, Anne Mitchell, interviewer; Moore, Laura Jane, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Indian women activists; Women social reformers; Women educators; College trustees; Indians of North America; Civil rights; Education; Treatment of Indians; Lumbee Indians
Other titles: Interview L-0078, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Ruth Dial Woods, June 12, 1992; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Ruth Dial Woods was born in Robeson County, North Carolina. She begins the interview by describing aspects of her childhood as a Lumbee Indian, focusing specifically on her education. Woods went to an Indian school in Robeson County until the late 1940s; she moved to east Tennessee when her mother was unable to complete her graduate degree in North Carolina because of discrimination against Native Americans in institutions of higher education. After her mother graduated, they returned to North Carolina, where Woods graduated from Pembroke High School. After one year at Catawba College, Woods transferred to Meredith College. She left Meredith in the mid-1950s to marry her first husband. The couple lived for several years in Detroit, Michigan, where they both worked for the Ford Motor Company. It was her time in Detroit, Woods explains, that opened her eyes to the segregation and discrimination against Native Americans in the South. When she returned to North Carolina at the end of the decade, Woods finished her bachelor's degree and became a teacher. During the 1960s, Woods became actively involved in the civil rights movement in North Carolina, which she describes as a "multiracial" effort. By the end of the 1960s, she shifted her attention to the women's liberation movement. Woods describes in detail some of her activities in both movements during the 1960s and 1970s, and speaks at length about her thoughts on Native American and other minority rights. In 1985, Woods was appointed to the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, where she worked to promote equality for minority students. She explains her decision to seek this post, and describes how her activism evolved into her appointment to the Board.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on December 16, 2008).

Interview participants: Ruth Dial Woods, interviewee; Anne Mitchell Coe, interviewer; Laura Moore, interviewer.

Duration: 01:44:23.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 164.6 kilobytes, 191 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series L, University of North Carolina, interview L-0078, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 21 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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